RAID 1 Problem in Win XP

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

Hi all,

I think I have made a big mistake on my RAID 1 implementation. Please can
someone advise:

I had a single 160gb maxtor HDD system that I converted from Basic to
Dynamic (for some reason;)) I then purchased an identical drive, and
connected it to my on board 2 ATA slot, went into the config, and created a
raid and copy mirror 1.

The source being my (dynamic) working drive, contents were copied to the
fresh unpartitioned identical drive. On completion, rebooted, now windows XP
will not boot. The system is constantley rebooting in a loop.

Is this beucase my source was dynamic? If so is there a quick fix so that I
can get my system back up?

FYI

I have tried to slave the disks in another machine, however cannot access
the drives, something in Disk Managmenet about foreign disk, and unable to
import the data. However I have used 3rd party software to recove the data,
what I really need is to fix the boot problem so that I dont have to rebuild.

Any advise would be great.

Darren
 
Hi all,

I think I have made a big mistake on my RAID 1 implementation. Please can
someone advise:

I had a single 160gb maxtor HDD system that I converted from Basic to
Dynamic (for some reason;)) I then purchased an identical drive, and
connected it to my on board 2 ATA slot, went into the config, and created a
raid and copy mirror 1.

The source being my (dynamic) working drive, contents were copied to the
fresh unpartitioned identical drive. On completion, rebooted, now windows XP
will not boot. The system is constantley rebooting in a loop.

Is this beucase my source was dynamic? If so is there a quick fix so that I
can get my system back up?

FYI

I have tried to slave the disks in another machine, however cannot access
the drives, something in Disk Managmenet about foreign disk, and unable to
import the data. However I have used 3rd party software to recove the data,
what I really need is to fix the boot problem so that I dont have to rebuild.

Any advise would be great.
Click to expand...

Windows XP does not support RAID at the OS / Disk Manager layer - you
have to have been using a third party tool of some sort.

Dynamic disks are the only ones that can be mirrored - you can't RAID
basic disks.
 
Hi Leythos,
Im using XP pro and I was under the impression that it does support software
raid?

Im not using any 3rd party software, only the RAID config from boot up that
is bundled with the mothorboard startup.

Are you saying it is not possible that this problem has occoured due to me
convertin the primary disk to dynamic under XP before initiating the Hardware
RAID 1?
 
Hi Leythos,
Im using XP pro and I was under the impression that it does support software
raid?

Im not using any 3rd party software, only the RAID config from boot up that
is bundled with the mothorboard startup.

Are you saying it is not possible that this problem has occoured due to me
convertin the primary disk to dynamic under XP before initiating the Hardware
RAID 1?
Click to expand...

Dynamic disks are the way to go with XP/2003, they are a normal function
and have nothing to do with a RAID issue.

It now sounds as though you have hardware raid, not windows based RAID
(or soft raid) and that you just didn't configure the hardware raid
properly.

What you should have done was setup the first physical drive, get it all
working as you wanted, rebooted, added the second physical drive to the
hardware raid telling the controller to mirror disk 0 to disk 1 and then
wait for it to complete.

It sounds like you didn't do something in the right order or you
mirrored disk 1 to disk 0.

One last thing - when doing a hardware RAID, the drives are not always
(mostly not) able to be moved to any OTHER controller - not even to
another box without the exact same controller.
 
ah so what your saying is that you need to setup the raid via disk management
on the primary disk first before installing the 2nd disk.

If so how is this done, I thought I already did this, hence the disk is
dynamic?

Also is there a fix to get one of the disks to boot again?

Thanks Leythos
 
ah so what your saying is that you need to setup the raid via disk management
on the primary disk first before installing the 2nd disk.
Click to expand...

No, what I'm saying is that you are confusing RAID with XP and some
vendors hardware/drivers.

XP does not do RAID via Windows, it supports the installation of RAID
controllers and RAID controller drivers, but XP does not do RAID like
2000/2003 server does - meaning you can't click on the drive and select
MIRROR from the Disk Management screen.

So, what motherboard, what IDE/SATA/SCSI card are you using, what RAID
controller are you using?
If so how is this done, I thought I already did this, hence the disk is
dynamic?
Click to expand...

Here is how I do it:

1) Install Disk 0, partition, and setup OS and applications making sure
to use the F6 option to load the RAID controllers drivers.
2) Make disk dynamic
3) reboot
4) Install Disk 1, don't do anything, reboot.
5) From RAID Controller cards BIOS, MIRROR Disk 0 to Disk 1

Win XP has no idea there is a RAID setup, it's done before XP starts by
the hardware controller card. Sure, you might be able to load a
driver/manager that shows the status of the RAID controller/drives, and
that driver might also allow you to manage the array, but it's done by
the controller card (or onboard RAID controller chipset).
Also is there a fix to get one of the disks to boot again?
Click to expand...

Since you've not explained your drives, controller cards, or how you are
doing RAID settings I can't really tell you what you did to lose the
drives or how to recover it.
 
Hi,

I have 2 160 Maxtor SATA drivers that are connect via SATA cable to my
motherboard which has raid on board, I have a Asus - P4G8x Deluxe with
Si3112r.inf as the silicon raid driver.

I dont have an actual PCI raid card, Im using the motherboard feature. Then
press F4 to setup the raid.

Also on the note of how to do it I pretty much followed your step
previously, however
"> 4) Install Disk 1, don't do anything, reboot."

When I installed the 2nd disk I didnt let windows startup, I jst created the
raid?

could this be the problem?
 
Hi,

I have 2 160 Maxtor SATA drivers that are connect via SATA cable to my
motherboard which has raid on board, I have a Asus - P4G8x Deluxe with
Si3112r.inf as the silicon raid driver.

I dont have an actual PCI raid card, Im using the motherboard feature. Then
press F4 to setup the raid.

Also on the note of how to do it I pretty much followed your step
previously, however
"> 4) Install Disk 1, don't do anything, reboot."

When I installed the 2nd disk I didnt let windows startup, I jst created the
raid?

could this be the problem?
Click to expand...

Ok, now we're cooking:

1) Was the disk 0 already connected to the onboard SATA RAID controller
or did you have it connected to another SATA controller and then move it
to the SATA RAID controller?

2) From the RAID BIOS (not sure how to get into it on that board, F4
sounds good), you setup your RAID by picking a drive as the source and
another as the one to mirror too.

3) As long as you installed the RAID controller drivers before you
started this you should not have had any problem.

Now, with the above said, I've seen many cases where a user has picked
the WRONG drive to mirror to the second drive - they end up mirroring
the unused drive over top of the OS drive and there is no recovery at
that point - it's worse than formatting the drive.

I think, based on all you've said, that you mirrored the blank drive
overtop of your setup drive.
 
) Was the disk 0 already connected to the onboard SATA RAID controller
or did you have it connected to another SATA controller and then move it
to the SATA RAID controller?
Click to expand...

My main disk was already connected to the onboard Sata raid controller. I
dont have any other controllers apart from the standard MB one.

2) From the RAID BIOS (not sure how to get into it on that board, F4
sounds good), you setup your RAID by picking a drive as the source and
another as the one to mirror too.
Click to expand...

Exactly, I created a raid and duplicated the source, I know that this was
done correct, as when I use R-Studio (data recovery software) on both disks,
I can see all of my data
3) As long as you installed the RAID controller drivers before you
started this you should not have had any problem.
Click to expand...

installed the RAID contoller drivers?? Im not sure what you mean, once i
installed the new blank disk, all i did was switch on, go into the RAID bios,
and created the raid. At no point it asked for any controller drivers, I
mean the PC straight away recognised the 2nd disk, as the raid was
successfully created.
Now, with the above said, I've seen many cases where a user has picked
the WRONG drive to mirror to the second drive - they end up mirroring
the unused drive over top of the OS drive and there is no recovery at
that point - it's worse than formatting the drive.
Click to expand...

If this is the case, and I did mirror a blank unformatted, un partitioned
drive to my used OS drive, when I use my data recovery software surely I
wouldnt see a thing?

thanks again
 
) Was the disk 0 already connected to the onboard SATA RAID controller

My main disk was already connected to the onboard Sata raid controller. I
dont have any other controllers apart from the standard MB one.



Exactly, I created a raid and duplicated the source, I know that this was
done correct, as when I use R-Studio (data recovery software) on both disks,
I can see all of my data


installed the RAID contoller drivers?? Im not sure what you mean, once i
installed the new blank disk, all i did was switch on, go into the RAID bios,
and created the raid. At no point it asked for any controller drivers, I
mean the PC straight away recognised the 2nd disk, as the raid was
successfully created.
Click to expand...

The drivers may not be needed, some onboard raid controllers require a
driver in order to use the drives once special functions are needed.

So, maybe your BIOS is not set to boot to the RAID array, it's possibly
setup to boot to the machine from the RAID array. Check in the BOOT
section of the BIOS menu.
 
Hi,

just checked the bios, and there is no refrence to any RAID in the bios, I
checked to make sure its not jumper related either.

I have just put the HDD back into the machine, loaded the RAID config
utility, and deleted the RAID and re created it. I have:

0 Maxtor 6B160M0 Curret
1 Maxtor 6L160MO rebuild

0 is the OS original

Im rebuilding the raid then will reboot......if this doesnt work do you have
any more ideas?

btw you have been excellent help, really appreciate this

DArren
 
Hi again,

I have just recreated the mirror and still no joy.

Just to clarify, the bios under boot does not have any ref to RAID nor SATA.
All I have set is the 4.Other Boot Device to SCSI Boot device.

There is no ref to RAID any where in the bios, all there is Onboard ATA
device which is enabled.

Am i missing something in the BIOS, if you want to see the manual please see

http://dlsvr02.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/sock478/p4g8x/e1133_p4g8x.pdf
 
Hi again,

I have just recreated the mirror and still no joy.

Just to clarify, the bios under boot does not have any ref to RAID nor SATA.
All I have set is the 4.Other Boot Device to SCSI Boot device.

There is no ref to RAID any where in the bios, all there is Onboard ATA
device which is enabled.

Am i missing something in the BIOS, if you want to see the manual please see

http://dlsvr02.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/sock478/p4g8x/e1133_p4g8x.pdf
Click to expand...

OK, I'm reading your motherboards manual right now - I had to download
the older English one, the newer one only came in German.

I'm looking at the 4-34/4-35

It would seem that you need to set the following:

1. Removable Device - Floppy
2. Ide Hard Drive - NONE
3. ATAPI CD-ROM - Pick your CD Drive
4. Other Boot Device - see if your SATA shows up or some how you can
pick the SATA drive array.

Option #4 or #2 has to show the SATA drive or it's not going to work.
 
Hi guys
Hope this may help you out. I have Raid0 on my ASUS p4p800 board , XP PRO.
My Bios uses the Promise Raid Controlers.
Look under the boot section of the bios,Boot Device Priority, click enter
and you should see 3 boot options
1st FT TX ARY 1 (my raid setup)
2nd CDROM DRive
3rd Floppy Drive
The regular bios does not show the raid hard drives,you will not see any
mention of them till the raid bios comes up.
Is your onboard raid enabled?
Hope this helps.
 
Hi Carl,

I understand that I only have one bios for my system motherboard, I dont
belive there us any other bios.

#I think im going to have to rebuild.

If i do is it better to set the raid up as one disk then install windows, or
installed windows on one disk normally then set the raid 1?
 
Hi Darren
When i install raid on my PC i have 2 hard drives set up to go,(i use 2 80
gig).
I boot from XP cd , first window hit F6 to install the raid Drivers, windows
starts copying files then it will ask for the Flopy
Disc, (which i had to create from the ASUS CDROM.
When the pc reboots the first time you will see it go through the regular
bios and next it will show the raid bios,
then i have to hit ctrl and s key to create my raid aray.
You can do it auto or manual,(chose the chunk size).
when you are done with that window continues and you can partition and
format the drive. (i use 2 80 gig so windows shows me 1 160 gig drive to
work with. iuse 30 gig for windows and the rest for storage.I create the
storage drive after i get windows up and running.)
Hope this helps.
 
Back
Top